The Princess Diaries 2 - Royal Engagement [2004]

• The Princess Diaries [2001]
• Hocus Pocus [1993]

However, the focal point of this 2004 sequel is again Princess Mia, who has returned to Genovia from getting her degree in political studies in the United States and is ready to complete her training so that Queen Clarisse can hand over the crown. Queen Clarisse is an extremely popular and beloved monarch, so her turning over the crown to a young American is supposed to seem like a good idea. That is because why we have engaging characters in engaging roles, the story telling here leaves a lot to be desired, mainly because you can see the plot line stretching out throughout the rest of the film as soon as you meet all of the characters and understand the dilemma.

It seems there is a hitch in the grand plan to make Mia queen of Genovia, mainly that the queen has to be hitched in order to become queen. Apparently Genovia has a constitutional monarchy with this sexist provision and the obvious solution to the problem does not occur to any one until the penultimate scene of the film. A compromise is reached and Princess Mia is given one month to get married. Fortunately, the rolpdex for European royalty is up to date and computerized and Andrew Jacoby, Duke of Kensington (Callum Blue), is picked to be the lucky groom. After all, Queen Clarisse had an arranged marriage, so it should be able to work out for Princess Mia. Besides, name a royal marriage in recent years (since the millenium) that has failed.

The other reason for Mia to be in a hurry to get hitched is that there is another claimant to the throne, Sir Nicholas (Chris Pine), the nephew of Viscount Mabrey (John Rhys-Davies), who reveres Niccolo Machiavelli and mentions him often enough that the young teenager girls that will love this movie might actually ask a teacher about who this dead European white male is and why he is mentioned so frequently in a Disney movie. Mabrey wants Nicholas to have the throne, so sabotaging Mia's romance with Andrew is a high priority, and since Mia is prone to loveable mishaps on her own, that might be have the battle right there. But there is some actual sparkage between Mia and Nicholas, and the the movie heads towards its obvious plot points.

Equally obvious is how "The Princess Diaries 2" is geared for young girls, more of the sort that attend Princess Mia's bridal shower slumber party than anything else. But my favorite parts are still anything involving either the Queen or Joe. The bald headed guy with the beard getting the girl is certainly more my idea of a storybook romance, plus there is a reason that Garry Marshall is always putting Elizondo in his films. So, for me this film was okay, and it actually picks up points for the final scene being the final scene, especially given the way the film is doing everything else by the numbers. Still, there are not any really sweet romantic moments like there was in "The Prince and Me," and for Hathaway fans "Ella Enchanted" is a much better film fairytale. Andrews and Elizondo have certainly been in some much better movies as well.

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